The Silence In Novel Works Of Pascal Quignard

Pascal Quignard,born in 1948,is a renowned contemporary French writer.He published his first book in 1969,with eighty-four works in total to date.His works have been highly regarded by critics and internationally acclaimed,which cover multiple disciplines and literary genres.He has won several major literary awards,including the Goncourt Prize and the Grand Prize of the French Academy’s novel.Having been exposed to linguistics and music at an early age,together with a systematic education background in philosophy,Quignard possesses excellent language skills,musical taste and philosophical thinking patterns.He always takes great interest in language and his experiences of aphasia for twice have prompted him to ponder further on the denoting relations between language and meaning,and to examine speech in silence.Silence is an important theme in Quignard’s works.It is rooted in his doubt and negation about language and its function.To him,silence excludes elements such as language,identity,relationship,interests,honor,logic,etc.It is the most natural and the purest path for people to enter into life,music and writing.This dissertation will make main research into nine of Quignard’s novels.By adopting the methods of textual reading and textual analysis combined with thematology,this dissertation will comprehensively sort out the discussion and hints about silence in Quignard’s works of fiction,examine the rich meanings of silence,and probe into the unique view of silence to conclude author’s overall creative thoughts.The dissertation will be divided into three parts,corresponding to the three main aspects of Quignard’s silence — silence with “life/living”,“music”,and “writing”.The three kinds of relations form an organic whole,where each part focuses on answering a central question,while also elaborating on birth,music and language respectively.The first part will analyze the relationship between life/living and silence.According to Quignard,life originates from silence,and entering into language is entering into culture as well as alienation.Therefore,the return to silence becomes the return to the origin.In the prenatal world,human beings are not surrounded by language and remains a whole with the maternal body.Birth means separation from the mother and entry into the noisy world of linguistic construction.The protagonists in the novel search for the way of life closest to life origins by rejecting their identity,choosing solitude,returning to the “firstborn” and transcending worldly love etc.In return to nature,they concentrate on their artistic creation and innovation in the silent space,time and state of mind.The second part will analyze the relationship between music and silence.Silence is also the origin of music.like blankness of paintings,and hollowness of porcelains.The essence of music lies in the inaudible,the unspeakable,and the invisible,speaking the inexpressible pain.However,music,as a kind of sacred art,gradually moves towards extreme rationality,and becomes an accomplice to the holocaust in the Nazi concentration camps.Eventually extreme rationality evolves into extreme noise pollution.The “music lesson” tells us that the real meaning of music has nothing to do with instruments or techniques.Instead,it exists in the human nature,the original society,and silent and magnificent nature.Music is rooted in emotion,expressing remorse,and calling for loss.Musicians in novels thus create the music of nature.Created in nature and stripped of meaning,it arrives in the realm of aural pureness,and ultimately achieves the exorcism of music.The third part will explore the relationship between writing and silence.Based on the fragmented and fractured characteristics of thought,Quignard chooses fragmented form of writing—intermittent narration,and fragments of silence,which instead well demonstrate the continuity and wholeness of the original world.Thus,human thought and behavior are reflected as truly and comprehensively as possible.Fragmented writing complies with his stay away from social life.Quignard defines himself as a reader or literary lover who appreciates ancient sages.The reading and re-writing of history is the main theme in his novels.Both the manner and content of writing are closely related to the reflection and critique of language.As a purely acquired thing,language is extremely fragile and close to extinction at any time.The absence of language is the origin of writing,and writing is a way to speak silence,to get rid of the shackles of collective language,to find the missing language of true meaning,and ultimately to dissolve the planning of literature.Through the analysis presented in this dissertation,a clear definition of “silence”in Quignard’s works will be given and the influence on the future path for French literature will be outlined.Silence does not equal saying nothing,or abandoning the noise,but a way of escaping and fighting against the empty social discourse.By writing about silence,Quignard reflects on the modern civilization and promotes a new way of living,new musical forms and literary models.